


Wild Things

by rendawnie



Series: Pieces [1]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Awkward Conversations, Bonfires, Drinking, First Meetings, Holding Hands, Late Night Conversations, Light Angst, M/M, Partying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-28 09:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11415237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rendawnie/pseuds/rendawnie
Summary: Junhui is new to these sorts of parties.Minghao is more out of place than he seems.Soundtrack: "Wild Things", Alessia Cara





	Wild Things

Not for the first time in the last hour, Junhui begins to wonder what fork in the road led him to this place in his life, and whether or not he can double back and make a sharp right, instead of a left.

Soonyoung abandoned him god-knows-how-long-ago-anymore in favor of more illicit activities with someone Junhui’s nearly positive he'd known less than five minutes, yet another example of the stellar decision-making that's becoming an increasingly large hallmark of Soonyoung’s formerly straight-laced personality.

It wouldn't be so bad, really, if Soonyoung hadn't been Junhui’s ride home. Now, he's stuck staring at the flickering bonfire everyone had been gathered around when this party started, except they've all taken the party further into the woods, and it's just Junhui.

Junhui and Minghao.

Junhui knows Minghao. Everyone knows Minghao. Junhui is one hundred percent positive that Minghao doesn't know him.

He shifts uncomfortably down the log he's been trying to perch apathetically on. It hasn't been going well. He's sweating inside the leather jacket Soonyoung lent him for the evening, his eyeliner almost definitely running down his cheeks. That part might be okay, actually. Maybe it's making him look more punk rock, behind the vague terror he knows he's probably not hiding anymore.

Junhui tries to remember what led to this. He starts way, way back, over a year ago. He starts at the day that Soonyoung, filled with rapturous excitement and awe, placed a worn vinyl album onto the cradle of his parents’ old record player and shared this whole thing with Junhui, this thing that was new to both of them.

Punk rock.

If he's being honest, Junhui hates it. Like,  _ really _ hates it, from the core of his goddamn soul. It all sounds like useless noise to him, the same kind of noise over and over, too hard and too fast to make any sense of it. But Soonyoung loved it, and Soonyoung is Junhui’s best friend in the entire world, and so Junhui tried to love it too.

Soonyoung  _ was _ his best friend in the world, until he abandoned Junhui for someone Junhui thinks calls himself Woozi, mere minutes after laying eyes on the glowering kid.

And now Junhui is here, wearing a leather jacket and eyeliner in the middle of summer in front of a bonfire, Soonyoung is gone, and Minghao is watching him from across the flames.

Junhui knows Minghao, because everyone knows Minghao. He hosts these parties at the lake by the woods every weekend during summer break, and all the punks in town come and Minghao presides over them, a Punk King without a throne. He's their age, Junhui remembers. He was in university with them for a few months before he dropped out to do...whatever Punk Kings do with their time. Punk around, he guesses.

Minghao’s list of activities evidently includes eyeing uncomfortably sweltering impostors across large man-made fires until the heat in his gaze causes said impostors to actively sweat.

It's Junhui, okay? He's the impostor.

He frowns, looking away from Minghao’s steady stare. Junhui gives up on the log, and slides down to the dirt and grass instead, shrugging Soonyoung’s jacket down his shoulders enough to get some air. It's good. Midnight brings the only bit of breeze they get this time of year, and Junhui is all but reveling in it, eyes closed and face turned to the dark sky, when a soft voice breaks the quiet.

“Hey. You okay?”

Junhui opens his eyes to slits, and Minghao isn't across the fire anymore. He's hovering over Junhui, forehead creased with what might be actual worry, and suddenly Junhui is hyper-aware of everything: the fact that his thin t-shirt is stuck to his skin with sweat and his hair is stuck to his forehead because Soonyoung put actual glue in it for some reason and Junhui let him for some reason, and fuck, he probably looks like hell. He definitely  _ feels _ like hell, he notices. Cheap beer is a harsh mistress. Junhui drinks too much of it at these parties. Trying to fit in is a lot of work.

He licks his lips, and they feel like sandpaper. There are one and a half Minghaos above him now, and all one and a half of them are wavy.

“Um,” he starts, voice croaky with disuse.

Minghao doesn't wait for him to go on. He reaches down and hauls Junhui up by his arm, half-leading and half-dragging him away from the fire, and Junhui is also hyper-aware of the way he's not protesting, because Minghao smells like home, and he's way too drunk to try and figure out why.

Instead, he lets Minghao pull him across the clearing to an old truck, tires buried in the soft dirt and bed propped open, and it must have been here a long time, Junhui thinks, because there's grass shooting up in between the corners of the bed.

He doesn't protest when Minghao actually lifts him onto the bed of the truck and disappears momentarily, long enough for Junhui to curl himself into a ball of faint humiliation. Very faint, currently.

When Minghao reappears, he's got two bottles of water in each hand and a washcloth tucked in his back pocket. Junhui only knows that last part because his eyes won't focus anywhere else but Minghao’s ass, for some reason. He decides now isn't the time to analyze that. His brain couldn't handle it in his condition, anyway.

Minghao hops up onto the bed next to Junhui and opens one of the bottles of water, pouring half of it over the washcloth. He wrings it out while Junhui sits up and drinks the rest, then their eyes meet and Minghao asks some silent question Junhui kind of understands, and the next thing he's aware of is the unbelievable relief of the cool cloth Minghao’s holding against his forehead.

He closes his eyes, and neither of them say anything for several long moments. Junhui is tired. He's thinking of laying back in the bed and taking a short nap. Eight hours or so should do it.

“You don't belong here.”

The words don't sound accusatory or derisive in Minghao’s mouth. They're matter-of-fact, because they both know it's true.

When Junhui’s eyes focus again, he watches Minghao stare out into the dark woods, the sounds of the party far enough to murmur instead of roar, and he doesn't know what to say, not at all, so Minghao keeps talking.

“Neither do I.”

Junhui frowns. “But you're the one who throws these parties.”

He's still looking at Minghao. Minghao's still looking away, looking at nothing, his hand gentle on the back of the washcloth, keeping it pressed to Junhui’s forehead. Finally, he chuckles a little.

“Do you ever just do things because you don't know what else to do?” Minghao muses softly.

Junhui straightens up a little more, bringing his own hand up to take the damp cloth from Minghao, who drops his hands into his lap instead. He lets the silence hang between them for a while, thinking. Finding some words that will work.

“All the time,” he admits finally. Minghao nods almost imperceptibly.

“That's basically why I'm here,” Junhui continues. He feels clearer. Not crystal, but maybe thirty percent of the way there.

He watches Minghao smile, and it's shy and small. It's different.

Minghao scratches the back of his head idly. “After my dad died, after I left school to go to work and help my mom out, I felt...still. Like I wasn't moving. You know what I mean?”

Junhui doesn't know why Minghao is telling him any of this, why he's different and why it makes Junhui ache in a way he's not felt in a very long time, but he knows what Minghao means, so he nods. He's almost afraid to talk. Afraid to break whatever's happening.

“I wasn't moving. I couldn't  _ do _ anything. No one came out to see me, no one invited me to shows. They were scared, I guess. Of something so big, of this thing that happened to me. They wouldn't come to see me anymore, so I found a way to bring them out here again.” Minghao's voice is still soft, still so much softer than Junhui expected.

Minghao considers his words for a moment, before he goes on. Junhui starts to consider what kissing him might be like.

“These parties and this music are all that keeps me from going crazy, some days. My mom's a mess still and I try so hard to help, but I just--” Minghao stops short, sniffling. Junhui decides it's inappropriate to contemplate making out with someone in obvious emotional distress.

He waits out Minghao's thoughts, letting him compose himself. It doesn't take long.

“I was going to be a writer, Jun. Did you ever read anything I wrote for the campus paper?” Minghao asks, and he looks so earnest that Junhui hardly knows what to do with himself and also, Minghao knows Junhui’s name and Junhui  _ really _ doesn't know what to do with that, at all.

“Yeah,” he says after a while, because he remembers. He remembers Minghao's short stories and poems, filled with gorgeous prose and flowing phrases and wild, fantastical creatures.

Minghao smiles. “I'm glad someone did. I don't write anymore,” he says, and the last word breaks and all Junhui wants in the world is to be able to put it back together for him.

“Why not?” Junhui asks.

Minghao shrugs. “I'm not sure I have anything to say.”

Junhui laughs, a short, unexpected sound. “Everyone has something to say.”

Quirking an eyebrow in Junhui’s direction, Minghao smiles again. It's less sad now. Junhui’s glad. “What should I say, then? What should I write about?”

Junhui can see the lake shimmering with moonlight through the trees. He can see the fireflies floating around them, hear the music Minghao loves that Soonyoung tries so hard to make Junhui love too. He can feel how the night has shifted into something almost magical.

He can hear the way Minghao stutters over a breath when Junhui laces their fingers together carefully. He doesn't know what he's doing, but he knows how it feels.

“Write about this place,” Junhui answers quietly. “Write about the fire and the people and the music and maybe you'll figure it out, y'know? Figure out where you belong again.” He doesn't know what he's saying, or if it makes sense, or if he's allowed.

He knows the way Minghao looks back at him, awed, like no one's talked to him this way in a very long time. Maybe they haven't, Junhui realizes.

He knows the way Minghao presses their palms even closer together suddenly, the way the warmth between them lights a smaller, more important bonfire they can hold and not get burned.

“Write about where the wild things are.”


End file.
